Professor Norman Naimark, Director, Bing Overseas Studies Program
Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies,
Professor, by courtesy, of German Studies & Senior Fellow, by
courtesy, at FSI and Hoover Institution

Mrs. Helen Bing

Monday, June 21, 2010

9:30 a.m.

Arrive at Palazzo Vecchio
Address: Via dei Gondi, 1 in Piazza della Signoria. You
will enter not from the door behind the statue of David but through
the side door behind the Neptune statue (you will see the back of that
statue on your right as you enter, make sure to bring photo ID).

A light lunch will be served in the garden from 12:00 p.m. - 2:00
p.m.

Rest of afternoon free or private
special visits with professors from
the home campus, Stanford in Florence professors and local experts

Evening free

Salone dei Cinquecento
This most imposing chamber was built in 1494 by Simone
del Pollaiolo, on commission of Savonarola who, replacing
the Medici after their exile as the spiritual leader of
the Republic, wanted it as a seat of the Grand Council
(Consiglio Maggiore) consisting of 500 members. Later the
hall was enlarged by Giorgio Vasari so that Grand Duke
Cosimo I could hold his court in this chamber. During
this transformation famous (but unfinished) works were lost, including the
Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo and the Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo.
Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned in 1503 to paint one long wall
with a battle scene celebrating a famous Florentine victory.
Leonardo had finished painting part of the wall, but it wasn't drying fast
enough, so he brought in braziers stoked with hot coals
to try to hurry the process. As others watched in horror, the wax in the
fresco melted under the intense heat and the colors ran down the walls to
puddle on the floor. Michelangelo never even got past
making the preparatory drawings for the fresco he was supposed to paint on
the opposite wall -- Pope Julius II called him to Rome to paint the Sistine
Chapel, and the master's sketches were destroyed by eager
young artists who came to study them and took away scraps. The surviving
decorations in this hall were made between 1555 and 1572
by Giorgio Vasari and his helpers, among them Livio Agresti
from Forlì.
They mark the culmination of mannerism and make this hall
the showpiece of the palace. On the walls are large and
expansive frescoes that depict battles and military victories by Florence
over Pisa and Siena

L’Aula Magna del Rettorato
The Grand Hall of the Chancellor’s Office of the University of
Florence

The Grand Hall of the Chancellor’s Office, located in Piazza
San Marco, is situated in a building commissioned in 1515 by the young
Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino and grandson of Lorenzo the
Magnificent, who had ordered the construction of two large and well-designed
stables “for use by horses of great respect and esteem.”

Eight decades earlier, in 1434, Niccolò da Uzzano had chosen
the same plot of land to erect, at his own expense, a building for
the University of Florence according to Lorenzo di Bicci’s design.

The University’s ties to the place were rediscovered in 1859,
when the provisional Tuscan government (installed following the expulsion
of the Grand Duke during the Risorgimento movement) founded the “Institute
for Practical and Specialized Superior Studies” (“Istituto
di Studi Superiori pratici e di perfezionamento”). This historic
link was documented at the request of Pasquale Villari, the Minister
of Public Instruction, who wished to underscore the building’s
situation “in the site of the old stables, where the Florentine
study once was”

In 1878 renovation efforts began, and in particular the decoration
of the Grand Hall’s ceiling was entrusted to the painter-decorator
Enrico Ghigi: on the ceiling, in light blue and in Neo-Baroque style,
a few small angels hold up the Savoy coat of arms and a crown, in honor
of the Savoy family that had at that time bolstered the rise of Italy;
several other angels also hold up a bay leaf, perhaps to emphasize
the reverence and sanctity of academic study in a hall utilized often
for meetings among University officials.

The present arrangement of the Grand Hall was effected between 1958
and 1967 according to the design by the engineer Arduino Matassini
and the architect Mario Negri, after the Department of Letters and
Philosophy was relocated to Piazza Brunelleschi.

Translated from the Italian by Scott Cauble, ’12

All former students
and their families are invited to participate in the Stanford
in Florence Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration. Each individual is responsible
for making and paying for travel arrangements and hotel reservations
for everyone in his or her party.

Registration Costs:
Alumni: $300.00
Young Alumni: $250.00 (those who graduated in June, 2000,
or later)
Families and Guests (cost per family member/guest): $250.00
Children under twelve: Complimentary